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Worrell: Ramp up COVID-19 tests, jabs

by Marlon Madden
2 min read
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Former Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell has urged ramped up COVID-19 testing to soften the blow of an “explosion” of cases.

At the same time, he suggested that a vaccinated population could be used to woo more visitors to the island.
“The revival of our economy depends on the restoration to 2019 levels, of the number of long-stay visitors to the island and their associated spending,” Worrell said in his August economic letter.He said while a timeframe for the return to the 2019 stellar tourism performance was still up in the air, there were measures that Caribbean countries could take to “bring forward revival”.

These measures, he said, would become clearer with time “and as we see what protocols and arrangements are effective in detecting and suppressing the COVID-19 virus”.

However, he added that vaccination of the population is one measure that can be advertised as an attraction to potential visitors.

“The European Union has already developed a workable vaccine passport which ought to be looked into.
“On the vaccination front, we are doing tolerably well, though no better than competing tourism destinations in the region. The countries that succeed in vaccinating their entire populations earliest will position themselves to steal a march on those that take longer to reach that goal,” Worrell said.

More than 100 000 people in Barbados have already received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 76 665 people have received both doses, representing just over 28 per cent of the eligible population that is fully vaccinated.

In relation to testing, Worrell suggested that this be done routinely, adding that there was need for building more laboratory capacity.

“Routine PCR testing of the population is the only means of detecting and suppressing outbreaks of COVID-19 before cases explode within the population, necessitating damaging new shutdowns of economic activity,” he said.

“Laboratory capacity needs to be stepped up by orders of magnitude, so that all test results become available within hours, no matter the volume of samples submitted. The scarcity of lab testing capacity is now a critical bottleneck in the national effort to suppress COVID-19. Investing to create the needed testing capacity is essential to restoring tourist arrivals and earnings to pre-COVID levels, and to returning the GDP to the $10.6 million recorded in 2019.”

Stressing that all measures should be employed, including vaccination, physical distancing, tracing, isolation and testing, Worrell suggested that the measures in place at Barbados’ ports of entry should also be tightened.

Worrell said: “Visitors do need to be tested before they travel and on arrival, but there is debate about the need for quarantine, the length of the isolation period, and the quality and security of isolation procedures and facilities. As of now, there is a bewildering variety of practices, none of which is watertight. What is very clear, however, is the need for universal testing, repeatedly.” (MM)

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